Ntal transfers occur regularly [39,40,53], with monoculture being maintained owing to strain incompatibility [37,43]. As soon as they produce domatia, saplings of Barteria fistulosa are colonised by several founding queens of Tetraponera, each of which barricades itself in a single separate domatium by using debris to plug its entrance hole (claustral foundation). When one founding colony has reac